What works best to grow your Art Biz – Social Media vs. Email list?

Are you want to sell your art work directly to collectors online? That’s awesome. You are attempting to put your working in front of millions of people who are actively looking to buy art work.

Only they aren’t buying yours.

The truth is that there are so many other artists out there. Some who you could say are better in their technical skill, others may have less skill than you. They are selling art and you aren’t.

What they have created is a relationship with people who might buy their work. People who know like and trust them.

So why social media?

It seems logical that social media would be a great place to build relationships, right. Only it isn’t.

Facebooks algorithm favour personal posts not marketing posts. This means that a reach on a Facebook page is 1-2% of the people who have liked your page. If you are lucky enough that people share and comment on your posts, more people will end up seeing your posts.

On Twitter and Instagram there are thousands of new posts which flood in every minute. How do you stand out in all that noise? The truth is, unless you already have a huge following you don’t

OK, so I know that there are all sorts of other social media, but these are the main two that we are recommended to use as artists.

So why email?

A good email open rate is 40%. They are also people who have opted into your email list because they have said that they like your work. They are people who are naturally already invested in your work. Who already like it. When you build a list of collectors (rather than supporters) you open the door to building a long term relationship with you.

Why do you want this relationship? Because people who have purchased from you before are generally the people who invest in higher priced originals.

Saad went from a 20k social media following and made $1,900 on an art launch. When he grew a list to 450 people, he made $11,500. This is the power of an email list you can make more money

Derek Halpern at Social Triggers talks about send information to Twitter and to an email list of the same size about a website update. He got 300 visits from Twitter and 4200 from his email audience.

So an email list will give you

a better chance of getting in front of people who have said they like your work (open rate)

more money

more people responding to your work

That’s got to be great news hey!

So where do you put your opt in forms?

Getting your opt in forms at the right place on your website can substantially increase your opt in rate. I was talking to someone, who when they put their opt ins in the right place increased their opt in rate from 7 or 8 a day to 28 day. That is a huge impact in your email list growth with a couple of simple changes

At the top of your home page

At the bottom of your about page

The top right of your blog page

Call to action at the bottom of your blog post

An exit pop up

If you would like an artist website makeover session, I would love to chat further